Stray Thought
by lyin
Summary: When he looked out of the corner of his eye, sometimes he still saw her waiting for him... Marlene McKinnon & Sirius Black, who never had a girlfriend- he had a motorcycle instead.


A/N: J.K. Rowling, who would know, tells us Sirius Black never had a girlfriend… (he had a motorcycle instead). Drop a review, if you'd like- I really appreciate it.

* * *

She waited for him. Leaning on her broomstick, head tilted to the right as she watched him out of the corner of her eye, she waited, even if she'd deny it.

Her gaze would skitter casually away and then eventually, as he headed away, rangy legs keeping up with James' swift short pace, she'd run after them.

"You can do better than that," she told him, face red with color from practice and chasing them, not looking a bit pretty when the rise in color swallowed her freckles in a sea of rosy pink. Her forehead furrowed and mouth skewed up, she'd rattle on with James about Plumpton passes and ploys and the Bludger Backbeat they couldn't get down.

They bored him when they just nattered on about it. If somebody showed him he'd do it just right, but words alone never reached his ears, getting tangled up somewhere in his dark hair.

James cuffed him when he didn't listen, hard on the back of the neck and once more on the ear if it'd been about Lily Evans, again. He'd make his sulking resentful face, perfected after years of moping about 12 Grimmauld Place, and give up a lazy "Owww" or "Are you trying to bleeding cripple me? Not on the neck, James, I use that!" or occasionally a suggestion James' mother (who was really a lovely woman, bless her soul) had done something highly unlikely with a sea serpent. Remus would begin to talk about something so terribly interesting that sooner or later even his mind would catch on. Peter would sort of sigh and shrug and hang about until he came to. Evans herself, if Godric forbid she deigned to speak with him, the enemy's best mate, would fume and storm away, which never really bothered him or James that much after fifth year because it presented an excellent opportunity to appreciate a very nice view.

Marlene just kept talking and acted like he was listening, and he just played along- and once in a while actually did pay attention to what was coming out of her mouth.

He'd snark back at her and she'd laugh and they got on alright. He got to know her enough. Danced with her once.

She liked caramel and dark chocolate and cinnamon gum and him and if he didn't know much, he knew that.

But Sirius Black was not the sort of boy who thought about bringing girls chocolate, or flowers- Marlene liked baby's breath and lilies-of-the-valley, Lily liked roses. Yellow ones.

When he looked out of the corner of his eye, sometimes he still saw her waiting for him.

He wasn't James. He couldn't be what she wanted him to be, the look he caught in her eyes that made him look away.

Usually he blew right past her, and if she was impatient and up to the blow in her dignity, she'd follow him and talk for a bit. Mostly he caught the glint of hurt in her eyes, the lift to her chin, because he wasn't interested enough to head over to her. Follow her. Wait for her.

She'd walk away, but look over her shoulder, just in his case he was looking.

Mostly he wasn't.

If he was, she shot him a sad, teasing sort of smile, a flash of her pink bee-stung lips and white teeth.

Her practiced smile.

He tried to remember her like that, that coy look that made her look pretty.

He knew girls who were beautiful when they smiled, when they turned red with anger, when their lovely faces were red and puffy with tears, when they laughed.

There was an abundance of them in his life, most even related to him. He liked beautiful girls.

She was not one of them.

But her hair was soft, even though he hardly remembered its real color, and her lips were perfect, although she chewed on her bottom lip when she was nervous or when she looked over her shoulder at him, hurt simply because he was Sirius Black and not looking her way as she was hoping.

When he walked away he never looked over his shoulder. Not when she stood shouting after him, not the last time when she'd watched him go with the look he didn't want to see in her eyes. He didn't look back to her form on the hill by her house, draped on the grass like she'd fallen asleep stargazing, one arm against her head in a perfect swoon and her caramel-colored hair falling about her. That night he didn't walk away.

He ran. He ran even though James shouted after him, and he left him to fix things, help people, do what he could because he was James and he was good.

He did not think of her, he did not dream of her, if he dreamed at all. He did not think of her in Azkaban.

He guessed she was a happy thought.

But once in a blue-grey moon, when he was not so alone, before Azkaban, and then on nights when his heart wasn't drumming out that James and Lily were _dead, dead, dead_ to the tune of his latest mistake, when he felt like going out for a drink and kissing a girl he didn't love until they were both dizzy and breathless, he would have an old stray thought of Marlene McKinnon.

When from time to time she crossed his mind, he wondered if she was still waiting.


End file.
